You should start with an idea, not a company. When it’s just an idea or project, the stakes
are lower and you’re more willing to entertain outlandish-sounding but
potentially huge ideas. The best way to
start a company is to build interesting projects.

On the other hand, when you have a “company” that you feel
pressure to commit to an idea too quickly.
If it’s just a project, you can spend more time finding something great
to work on, which is important—if the startup really works, you’ll probably be
working on it for a very long time.

Have at least one technical founder on the team (i.e.
someone who can build whatever the company is going to build).

In general, prefer a fast-growing market to a large but
slow-growing one, especially if you have conviction the fast-growing market is
going to be important but others dismiss it as unimportant.

The best startup ideas are the ones that seem like bad ideas
but are good ideas.

Make something people want.
You can screw up most other things if you get this right; if you don’t,
nothing else will save you.

Once you’ve shifted from “interesting project” to “company”
mode, be decisive and act quickly. Instead
of thinking about making a decision over the course of week, think about making
it in an hour, and getting it done in the next hour.

Become formidable.
Also become tough—the road ahead is going to be painful and make you
doubt yourself many, many times.

Listen to what your users tell you, improve your product,
and then listen again. Keep doing this until
you’ve made something some users love (one of the many brilliant Paul Buchheit
observations is that it’s better to build something a small number of users
love than something a lot of users like).
Don’t deceive yourself about whether or not your users actually love
your product.

Keep your burn rate very low until you’re sure you’ve built
something people love. The easiest way
to do this is hire slowly.

Have a strategy. Most
people don’t. Occasionally take a little
bit of time to think about how you’re executing against your strategy. Specifically, remember that someday you need
to have a monopoly (in the Peter Thiel sense).

Ignore what the press says about you, especially if it’s
complimentary.

Generate revenue early in the life of your company.

Hire the best people you can. However much time you’re spending on this,
it’s probably not enough. Give a lot of
equity to your employees, and have very high expectations. Smart, effective people are critical to
success. Read this: http://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-hire.

Fire people quickly when you make hiring mistakes.

Don’t work with people you don’t have a good feeling
about—this goes for employees (and cofounders), partners, investors, etc.

Figure out a way to get users at scale (i.e. bite the bullet
and learn how sales and marketing work).
Incidentally, while it is currently in fashion, spending more than the
lifetime value of your users to acquire them is not an acceptable strategy.

Obsess about your growth rate, and never stop. The company will build what the CEO
measures. If you ever catch yourself
saying “we’re not really focused on growth right now”, think very carefully
about the possibility you’re focused on the wrong thing. Also, don’t let yourself be deceived by
vanity metrics.

Eventually, the company needs to evolve to become a mission
that everyone, but especially the founders, are exceptionally dedicated
to. The “missionaries vs. mercenaries”
soundbite is overused but true.

Don’t waste your time on stuff that doesn’t matter (i.e.
things other than building your product, talking to your users, growing,
etc.). In general, avoid the kind of
stuff that might be in a movie about running a startup—meeting with lawyers and
accountants, going to lots of conferences, grabbing coffee with people, sitting
in lots of meetings, etc. Become a Delaware
C Corp (use Clerky or any well-known Silicon Valley law firm) and then get back
to work on your product.

Focus intensely on the things that do matter. Every day, figure out what the 2 or 3 most
important things for you to do are. Do
those and ignore other distractions. Be
a relentless execution machine.

In addition to building a great product, if you want to be
really successful, you also have to build a great company. So think a lot about your culture.

Don’t underestimate the importance of personal connections.

Ignore acquisition interest until you are sure you want to
sell. Don’t “check the market”. There is an alternate universe somewhere full
of companies that would have been great if they could have just avoided this
one mistake. Unfortunately, in this
universe, they’re all dead.

Work really hard.
Everyone wants a secret to success other than this; if it exists, I
haven’t found it yet.